You Don't Get to Choose What Your Nightmares Are
by writersblock159
Summary: The first time, it was something she ate. The second it was just bad luck. Now, however, the nightmares are as regular as clockwork... and Ruby is getting tired. The Nightmares? They're getting more frequent... and Ruby knows she can't tell anyone.


**"You don't choose them; they choose you."**

**Disclaimer: I don't get paid enough to own RWBY.**

**I got to the muse before she got into the Sangria, but she made a mad dash for Morocco before I could finish putting it away. I eventually caught up to her long enough for me to get this polished off. Then she distracted me with... something else that may or may not be seeing publication.**

***Puts on coat* Now I'm off to Everest, last I heard she was holed up there. Hopefully I can publish more than one piece this month.**

**Enjoy**

* * *

_Darling, I've been having dark dreams._

_They come home to haunt me,_

_ I can't seem to let them go..._

_Bad Dreams- Faouzia_

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Ruby's eyes shot open as she bolted upright, breathing heavily. Glancing around her bed, she reassured herself that she wasn't in the middle of a fight for her life. Judging by the snoring coming from across the room, Yang was not in mortal danger either, and if the conversation from her bunkmate was any indication Weiss was fast asleep as well.

And if _they _were asleep, then odds were good that the team's faunus member had stuck her head under her pillow in an effort to get some sleep.

It occasionally worked too.

Unfortunately for Ruby, the chattering from below and the snoring from across the room, weren't the main obstacle to her sleep. Lying back down and closing her eyes just led to more upsetting images forming in front of her eyes. Counting sheep turned them to Grimm and suddenly-

She shot back up, a nightmarish Grimm crushing Blake's head in its jaws as she missed another shot with Crescent Rose. Rubbing her eyes, the girl tried to banish the offending thought from her mind through sheer willpower. Naturally, it didn't work.

Grabbing her scroll, she glanced at the time.

Saturday, 01:26.

Okay, sleep wasn't really _needed_ today since it was a weekend; she could always try again after a glass of milk and some cookies. Slipping out from under the sheet-canopy over her bed, she dropped lightly to the ground. Listening for any indication that she might have disturbed the sleepers in her room, she remained frozen in place for a moment before a particularly loud snore from Yang reassured her no complaint would rise from that quarter. As for her own partner…

"Ruby Rose?"

Oh dear.

"Miss question this answer you can."

"Weiss, wha-?"

"Hunter the than rather hunted the becoming of risk the run you it without. Important so is Grimm tracking why is _that _and-."

Ruby tuned out her partner, relieved that the older huntress trainee was still asleep. To the amusement of her teammates, Weiss vehemently denied talking in her sleep, even going so far as to claim their video proof had been edited and telling off RBY for "creeping on her while she was sleeping." She often repeated their lessons in her sleep, but Ruby had never before heard her doing them _backwards_.

Sneaking to the door, RWBY's youngest student peered out into the darkness of the hallway. Seeing that it appeared to be completely empty, she slipped out, carefully closing the door so it didn't make a sound. She had been out enough this late at night to know to lift the door just slightly so it didn't squeak. She liked her roommates and Yang, but she didn't want to bother them with something silly like a nightmare. Her sister would get all mothering, and her friends would get all concerned, and Ruby would be lucky if they let her out for classes on Monday.

Or maybe that was just Yang. The girl could be a bit… overprotective at times.

As silently as a tired fifteen year old girl can move in a dark hallway at one thirty AM, Ruby made her way to the dorm's kitchen, which... had its light on?

Quietly, she made her way to the edge of the opening. When she began to hear voices inside, she stopped and listened.

"... I am quite surprised. I would not have thought that you were so handy in this area." That was definitely Ren's voice: no one else was quite so succinct in the way the spoke.

"Well… it's not anything special, just cookies." That sounded suspiciously like Pyrrha, and Ruby tried not to feel guilty that she'd been stealing cookies that the older girl had been making. She had left the ingredients in the fridge with the _intent _to make them, it was just that someone (apparently the Argus native) always got to them first.

"This…" a much quieter and strangely familiar voice added, "This is not a cookie, and you still made it. It is excellent."

Rens quiet laugh carried into the hall. "I am not surprised that you, of all people, would like dried fish." The familiar voice said something too soft for Ruby to make out, and Pyrrha and Ren laughed.

"I need to get these into the oven." The red haired fighter finally continued after the laughter had settled.

"I have been meaning to ask: why do you make those?" Ren's voice sounded muffled, as though he had moved further from the doorway.

Silence followed the boy's question, and the young girl could practically see the embarrassed look on Pyrrha's face. "She makes them for Ruby." The third voice, which now sounded like Blake, supplied. A beat passed: either the redhead had agreed or Ren had a confused look on his face, which Ruby _highly_ doubted. "She comes down on occasion in the middle of the night for a… 'midnight snack.'" The young girl tried not to wince at the quotes put around the words.

"Ah." Ren's voice held none of the distain Ruby had expected. Instead, he sounded like a longstanding question had finally been answered.

"Aaand set." Pyrrha's voice drifted out as the clang of the oven signaled the cookies were apparently on their way to being cooked. Shuffling came from inside the kitchen and running water signaled that someone was doing dishes. During the following silence, Ruby tried to figure out what 'midnight snack' could mean. She knew what she didn't _want _it to mean. If anyone knew that she wasn't able to handle being a leader, they might kick her out of the program! She was proud of being the head of team RWBY, but if Ozpin knew that she couldn't control her mind, he might remove her as team leader; more importantly, he could expel her from Beacon entirely! The light coming from the kitchen dimmed and the conversation inside started up again, pulling her from her panic.

"I believe that it was your deal when we last played." Ren's voice filtered back into the hallway.

A murmur of disagreement came from the other voice. (Seriously, it sounded like Blake, but she was still in bed, wasn't she?) "Can it not be? She stacks the deck."

"I do not, Blake!" A smack was heard, but by the chuckles that followed, the swing had been in jest. "Just because I know statistics well enough to control how much I need to shuffle-"

"Stack the deck, you mean." Blake's voice was rich with humor. Apparently Ruby wasn't a very good leader if one of her team had left and she hadn't even noticed.

A scoff came from the redhead. "The day I have to cheat to keep up with _you_ _two_ is the day you guys find a new partner for poker, and good luck with that. I'm the only one who can keep up with your-admittedly quite good-poker faces."

"Definitely not." Ren's soft spoken voice carried over the noise of shuffling cards without too much difficulty. "We all know that Nora can play with us."

Another laugh came from the girls inside. Against her better judgement, Ruby crept closer and peered into the room.

The oven light showed the cookies baking slowly and the outlines of the drying dishes propped up in the sink. Pyrrha was sitting between Ren and Blake, her back to the oven, presumably to be able to get up if the cookies smelled like they were burning. Ren had his back fully to the door, while Blake was facing the door and seemed to be eating… something scaly while carefully looking at her cards. A dim hanging lamp illuminating the table made the three students look intimidating, especially as they carefully sipped from their drinks. It was difficult to imagine them as hardcore gamblers when they were dressed in their pajamas though.

The three bid for a few moments, before returning to their topic, namely replacing Pyrrha as dealer. "...I'm just saying, the last time Nora played she lost all of her clothes, money, and jewelry to you, Ren. But the moment you gave your hand to Jaune, neither he nor I were left with a stitch of clothing between us."

Blake's 'Well, it's about time!' got a chuckle from Ren and had Ruby scrambling back so that her blazing red face didn't catch anyone's attention. She wasn't exactly… comfortable with talking about sex. She supposed she was interested, but the problem was that she still couldn't talk about it without immediately blushing and feeling awkward. Apparently two years really did make a difference.

At least if the way the three inside the other room were ribbing each other was any indication.

"So no Nora?" Ren's voice was full of mirth, and Ruby snuck a look back around, seeing that the group was much more interested in the redhead's embarrassed and flustered demeanour. "I'm sure we could get Jaune down here too. Maybe a few more times could clue him in that you like him. I raise ten." He tossed in a chip.

"Mmmm." The emerald-eyed teen responded, shaking her hair out of her face and tossing in an additional chip. "As much fun as that might be for me, Jaune was too mortified the first time, and I doubt additional…"

"Exposure?" Blake offered with a smirk, tossing in a couple of chips herself.

"Not the right word." Pyrrha glared at the faunus, who surprisingly had her bow off. "Let's just say I doubt 'additional inoculation' would do much."

Ren muttered something about the injection usually going the other way around, causing Blake to begin coughing on her tea, which fortunately covered Ruby's mad scramble backwards as she realized what the straightlaced boy was implying.

A few moments later Pyrrha's trio of kings had taken the pot over Blake's 'complaints,' and the three were back to weighing their options. Each burned the cards they wanted, then took their time deciding to bid. Eventually the Argus native spoke.

"If I can avoid having Jaune join us, you guys know I will."

Curious, Ruby scooted forward again, catching sight of Ren's shaking head. "I feel the same about Nora, but you know it's only a matter of time, right?"

"Honestly, I'm surprised she isn't already down here." Blake motioned for another card.

The dark-haired boy agreed, signaling for a card himself. "Nora, as you have no doubt noticed, has a… vivacious personality. I have seen her rush a Grimm holding nothing more than a stick and a rock. Ever since I have known her, she has refused to stop for anything. If she suffers as we do… she has done an excellent job hiding it." He sighed. "Call."

A moment passed as the chips were matched, and Ren's three jacks beat out Blake's two pairs of Kings and Aces, much to the faunus's displeasure. Ren redistributed the cards while Pyrrha checked on the cookies, which were beginning to smell divine. Blake's ears swiveled as Pyrrha called out, "So that's our teammates. What about yours?"

The faunus sighed as she looked at her cards, idly playing with her chips as she did so. "What about them? Yang occasionally reminds me of Nora; I swear nothing can faze that girl. Weiss… I don't know. There are times I think she's just going to crack under the pressure of school, never mind being a huntress. Other times she acts like she's been doing this for years and reminds me of people I… grew up with." Pyrrha nodded solemnly as Ren reached across the table and squeezed the cat faunus's shoulder. Blake finally tossed another few chips in the center, smoothly shrugging off the gentle reassurance. "So when we'll see them here… I don't know. Yang is more likely to go cause trouble then face her problems head on, and I think Weiss is too tired to actually process what's going on."

"And Ruby?" Ren's voice made the girl in question nearly jump out of her skin.

Surprisingly, it was Pyrrha who responded. "She already comes down, at least that's what Blake said."

"Yep." The cat faunus nodded, discarding and drawing. "She usually goes for those cookies Pyrrha makes, as well as some milk. I ran into her a few nights ago."

"Ah." Ren said, as though this explained much. "Do you know why?"

Both girls shrugged, as the topic of conversation let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "No. Call." Blake laid her hand out, smirking. Ren threw his cards down, making a noise of disgust as he did so.

Blake was cackling a bit as she started to collect the large pile of chips in the center of the table, only to have Pyrrha stop her with a smirk of her own. "What are you doing?"

The cat faunus gestured to the cards on the table. "Four aces, king high."

"_I_ wasn't done." The redhead countered gently as she lay her hand on the table. "Read it and weep. Straight flush."

"Okay, I'm out." Ren said, his chair scraping as he got up. "I know when luck is just not in my favor."

"Giving up?" Pyrrha's voice was surprised. Ruby could see there was actually a pretty large pile of poker chips left at the dark-haired boy's spot, so his apparent surrender was surprising.

"Not at all. I have every intention of redeeming myself. I just plan to request a cookie or two to soothe my wounded pride." Ren stretched for a moment, and he and Pyrrha departed for the oven, and the hopefully now baked cookies. Ruby watched them with a mixture of hunger and longing. As she debated joining the group, because those cookies were smelling better by the minute, she realized she wasn't sure where Blake had gone. The faunus wasn't standing with Ren and Pyrrha, who were debating on taking the cookies out a bit early, and wasn't in her chair either. As she looked around she suddenly met the very curious eyes of her teammate.

"Meep!" Ruby squeaked, backing into the wall. Her retreat had taken her all of an extra centimeter away from the faunus, and it had also created a rather loud thump that got Ren and Pyrrha's attention.

"Blake? Are you all right?" The redhead's concerned voice came from inside the kitchen.

"Fine." The cat faunus responded. "Just mouse hunting."

"Find anything?" Ren sounded amused.

"Yep." Amber eyes met silver, pinning the younger girl in place. "Just trying to figure out what she's doing here."

Ruby opened her mouth to answer, but found that it wasn't working. She realized belatedly that she didn't really have an excuse for eavesdropping on the trio. Yes, she had been curious, and yes she should have said something, but explaining that was a lot harder than she thought.

As Ren and Pyrrha's footsteps got closer, Blake's long, unblinking stare continued unabated. Ruby frantically thought of something, _anything_, to say. Eventually, as the others came around the corner, she finally just went for the only thing she could think of.

"I'm sorry." Though in her flustered state it was so high pitched she wasn't sure her teammate could understand what she said.

Blake apparently did, though, because her eyes softened a bit. "I know. Come on, Pyrrha made cookies." Ruby felt the faunus' hand rest on her shoulder briefly before Blake stood up and offered her a hand, pulling her to her feet when she took it.

"Ruby? What are you doing down here?" Pyrrha smiled welcomingly at her.

"I just… wanted some cookies." The youngest girl scuffed her foot on the floor guiltily. "Then you guys were talking, and I didn't want to interrupt, and I started listening. I didn't mean to, I just wasn't thinking, and… and I'm sorry." She finished lamely, looking down at the floor.

Ren finally spoke up. "I believe the cookies are ready now, Ruby, if you would like some."

"After that we can talk about why you came down here." Blake said quietly, guiding her teammate to the counter where the piping hot cookies were.

Ruby blanched a bit at that, but still grabbed three cookies, sending Pyrrha a shy grin as she did so. "I heard you've been making these, I'm sorry I've been eating them, but they're _soooo_ good."

The redhead laughed, pulling a tray of unbaked cookies from the refrigerator and putting them into the oven. "I'm glad you like them, and there's no need to apologize. You are, after all, the one who keeps buying me the ingredients."

"So, Ruby, do you know how to play poker?" Ren asked as the four of them walked back to the table. Ruby shook her head, a bit embarrassed. "Ah, good! Then we can teach you. First you watch, then you try, then you learn, then you do. That's what… that's what my father always said." The dark-haired boy stared off into space for a moment before shaking his head and pulling his chair up.

Blake also sat down, shifting her chair so she was a bit closer to Ruby, showing her the hand she'd been dealt and what she was looking for. Ren and Pyrrha talked as the faunus explained what was going on and how the game worked. Eventually the three began to play while Ruby attacked her cookies and learned how to gamble.

After three hands (which the cat faunus won) Blake finally directed the conversation to Ruby. "So what brings you down here at this time of night?"

"Um.. couldn't sleep." Maybe not the whole truth, but enough that it wasn't a lie either.

Pyrrha, who had taken the seat across from Ruby, nodded in agreement. "I dare say you're in pretty good company." She motioned to the other two around the table as she tossed a chip in the middle. "Everyone here has sleep trouble every now and again."

"Really?" Ruby glanced at the trio.

"Occasionally." Ren agreed.

Blake just nodded, her ears back as she looked at her hand.

"The real problem is how much it messes up your sleep schedule." The redhead continued, apparently half-joking judging by the pained smile on her face.

Silence fell across the group, with the game being the focus for a few minutes as they played. Suddenly a thought struck Ruby, and she blurted out, "Why did you think that anyone else would join us down here?"

Blake shrugged, carefully arranging her cards. "Because with the festival only a month or two away, I'd be surprised if people aren't already suffering from nightmares."

She said it so casually, but Ruby felt her stomach plummet at that statement. Blake knew! Somehow, despite never bringing it up and carefully avoiding the topic, her teammate had figured it out. Maybe that was why she wanted to talk: to blackmail the younger girl into something. Normally Ruby would have dismissed that as ridiculous, but the dreams had been getting more frequent lately and her sleep schedule had been screwed up worse than usual; leaving her with only two or three hours of sleep a night.

Taking a deep breath, the youngest of the quartet calmed herself. "So why do you think that?" She tried to keep her voice neutral as she asked.

Ren answered, catching Ruby off guard. "Because she has the most experience with people who struggle with them."

"Another reason I just _love_ the White Fang." Blake muttered dryly.

"Oh come now." Pyrrha grinned a bit. "I'm sure it would make an excellent post-retirement job." Ruby snapped her head around to look at the Argus native like she'd just gone nuts.

Apparently this was a well-worn conversation for the three however, because Blake sat up a bit straighter and matched Pyrrha's smile with one of her own. "Oh, definitely! As a matter of fact, I bet you could join too! No one would mind at all."

"That sounds wonderful!" The redhead clapped her hands. "Can you imagine, me, a human huntress, returning with the long lost prodigal daughter?"

"Oh yes, a traitor and her heavily armed bodyguard walking into a terrorist camp will not cause any sort of uproar." Ren chimed in.

"Ren! That's just rude; the faunus of the White Fang are fine, upstanding citizens!" Pyrrha gasped with mock horror.

Blake's eyes twinkled a bit. "Oh yes. Haven't you seen their propagan- I mean _edu- documentaries_ that they put out? Clearly they are the cream of the crop."

Ruby watched as they two girls 'browbeat' the boy into being a 'true believer' in the White Fang. It amazed her. Here was something Blake never brought up around the team. It clearly bothered her, but she always dismissed their concerns when they tried to make sure she was okay. Here, however, she laughed and joked about it. If she wasn't looking at it herself Ruby wouldn't have believed it. Ren's 'last request' for permission to take out two large life insurance policies on the girls before they left was met with giggles and agreement, though Pyrrha pointed out that they may be ineligible due to "_grim _extracurricular activities".

The pun was terrible, but all four thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Eventually they calmed down, and Ren took the hand with a pair of twos. As they shuffled the deck, Blake gave Pyrrha a significant look. The redhead sighed.

"Back to your question, Ruby, we think that people are going to be suffering from nightmares because training traditionally peaks right before the end of the year. To make matters worse, this year there is a giant competition for who is the best fighter-not just in school, but between the kingdoms."

Ren took over, dealing as he spoke. "As people get more stressed, they _need_ more sleep. The problem is that many of the students here had never fought a Grimm before now and they are not… entirely used to it." Ruby tried not to deflate at that. They knew, she was sure of it.

"So you have a decent amount of students who don't know how to manage their nightmares." Blake glared at her hand, ears back again.

"Not like you can really control them anyway," Pyrrha murmured sadly.

Ruby looked around the group; each member looked pensive and upset. The happy atmosphere from before had evaporated. "Not everyone has nightmares, though."

Ren nodded. "I'm guessing you heard me say that Nora doesn't, but I know that Jaune has had a few."

"Weiss has woken me twice," Blake added, "and Yang… well, hers can get a bit violent."

Ruby blinked. "Wha- how come-?"

"Because you sleep like a rock." The cat faunus replied. "Seriously, getting you up can be a bit of a pain if it's before six."

"What about you?" The younger girl asked before slapping a hand over her mouth. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry, it just slipped out. I get that that's personal-"

Pyrrha held her hand up to stop the rush of words that Ruby was forcing out. "Ruby, why do you think we're down here?"

The shorter girl motioned to the cards. "Poker and cookies."

Ren shook his head, setting down his cards, giving Ruby his full attention. "Not at all. We're down here because sleeping is… not always fun."

The youngest of the group looked at the serious faces around the table. "You guys have nightmares too?"

"Yes." Blake spoke bluntly.

"Unfortunately." Ren agreed.

"Did you think you were the only one?" Pyrrha asked gently, surprise coloring her features.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah. I mean everyone here is older than me and already knows more than me, I just figured I was too young. I didn't want to tell anyone in case it meant…" She felt foolish, like a child who had turned on the light to see that the 'monster' she was afraid of had just been the bookcase. Suddenly she felt a very careful squeeze around her shoulders. Blake was… hugging her? The cat faunus was not one for physical affection, so this action was… quite surprising.

"Ruby, you aren't wrong to have bad dreams. Everyone has them on occasion." The cat faunus pulled back from the hug gently, obviously uncomfortable. "We are here to talk if you need to, and we _understand_."

The younger girl rubbed her eyes, pushing the unshed tears out of her vision. "Thanks, I just- Thanks."

Ren just nodded, but Pyrrha smiled softly. "You're welcome. Now, I think it's your deal."

Ruby shook her head. "Not tonight." She glanced at her scroll, seeing it was almost 4:50. "I need to try to get some sleep, but if I can't sleep again, then next time."

The three nodded in understanding, and before she knew it she was standing outside of her room, six cookies in one hand and a considerably lighter feeling than she had left with in her heart.

Closing the door, she set the cookies on her desk for later before climbing into her bed. Although she wasn't sure she'd be able to sleep, she was out cold as soon as she lay down.

The nightmares would be back, but she would be ready. Next time her friends would be there to help.

* * *

**Title Credit: John ****Irving**

**Working Title: From Dusk 'Till Dawn**

**R&R**


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